Viorela Ciucur, assistant professor of piano accompaniment at the Bucharest Music Academy in Romania and FDU Global Virtual Faculty (GVF) member, visited the Metropolitan Campus on March 4 during her short stay in the United States.

She met with faculty, staff and students, with whom she had previously corresponded via the Internet and gave a talk on “George Enescu and Cultural Globalization” and performed a special piano recital on campus.

Ciucur joined the Global Virtual Faculty program six years ago, not long after its inception. Most recently she has worked with Mihaela Leonida, chemistry (Metro), and her Global Challenge course, and Christopher Devine, chemistry/philosophy (Metro), and his Technology and Its Critics course.

Global Virtual Faculty member Viorela Ciucur, third from left, met with Mihaela Leonida, right, chemistry (Metro), and Christopher Devine, third from right, chemistry/philosophy (Metro), two FDU faculty members she has corresponded and worked with via the Internet. Also greeting Ciucur are Diana Cvitan, second from left, director, global learning (Metro); Brian Swanzey, second from right, director, Wroxton study abroad; and Elise Salem, right, associate provost for global learning (Metro/Flor) and English (Flor).

The GVF program brings academics and practitioners from around the world into the classroom through online participation. The program’s primary goal is to bring a global dimension to the learning experience by offering different perspectives and observations to students on the issues being studied. Communication and participation is Web-based, with the GVF remaining in his or her home environment.

At present, there are 64 distinguished scholars and practitioners as Global Virtual Faculty. They range from a professor of English literature at the University of Mumbai in India to a European liaison officer for the British Medical Association in Brussels, Belgium, and from a historian at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social and Economic Studies at the University of West Indies, Jamaica, to an associate professor of pharmacy at the University of Rhodes, South Africa. To view the wide range of resources visit http://view.fdu.edu/default.aspx?id=270 .

Global Virtual Faculty members include, from left, Kumar Ketkar from India, Velma Pollard from Jamaica, Jacob Lomranz from Israel, Anna Varkonyi from Hungary and John Lennard from the United Kingdom.

FDU faculty are encouraged to include GVF in their courses and are invited to discuss interests and questions they might have with representatives from the Office of Global Learning. A variety of participation models are available, and new opportunities for collaboration exist including Webcams and class-to-class interaction through the Global Virtual classroom on http://www.gig.org — contact Diana Cvitan, 201-692-7161 or dcvitan@fdu.edu. For information on requesting a Global Virtual Faculty member go to http://view.fdu.edu/default.aspx?id=4347 . For the fall semester, request forms need to be in the Office of Global Learning between May 1 and May 31, 2008

The Global Virtual Faculty main page is http://view.fdu.edu/default.aspx?id=4344 .

March 2008

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Flor =
College at Florham, Madison, N.J.

Metro =
Metropolitan Campus, Teaneck, N.J.

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